Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

Deputy Adams seems to have missed the point that we have renegotiated substantial elements of the Memorandum of Understanding signed off with the troika. The reduction in PRSI and VAT in the hospitality sector, the changes and restructuring made in respect of the banks and the renegotiation, with European consent, of interest rates have brought about a saving of €10 billion for the Irish taxpayer.

We never made a commitment to paying blank cheques as was done before. The State has committed to paying such cheques and we have taken an alternative view as how to reduce the overall debt burden. What happened before was that a blank cheque was signed off without knowing what its extent would be. We now know the full extent of it and the Government has to work with European colleagues and everybody else to reduce that.

The emphasis has to be on creating jobs. I agree that a figure of over 440,000 unemployed is completely unacceptable but one will not deal with that unless one makes serious decisions about the cost, structure and governance of how business in this country has been run for a very long time. These decisions are not easy. The €18 billion deficit will not go away on its own. It has to be dealt with by reducing costs, growing our indigenous economy and continuing to have a thriving export market such as we have. As the Deputy is aware, in Greece exports account for about 20% of GDP, but here they account for 100% of GDP and the figure is expected to grow strongly next year.

The emphasis of the Government has been to meet the immovable budget deficit target of 8.6% of GDP next year and provide an opportunity for jobs to be created and for work to be seen to be rewarded. That means serious decisions must be made in respect of a range areas, such as in the structure of the health system, the methods of social protection and all of the other areas where the cost base has to be examined in order to be reduced. We also need to consider the cost of the entire public sector and the way to stimulate confidence in the indigenous economy.

The Deputy wants a new programme for Government. He will not get one. The Government has been in office just over eight months. We are at least entitled to make an effort to implement the programme for Government on which we have agreed. Every aspect of it has not been delivered in detail but I have a long list detailing progress which I could read out for the Deputy if he wishes.

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